A Conversation With Don Bellisario

JAG is the third dramatic series that writer/ producer/ director Donald P. Bellisario has helped shepherd through the 100 episode barrier. He earned a journalism degree from Penn State in 1961 and began his career as a copywriter for a small advertising agency. Bellisario subsequently became creative director and senior vice president of a large advertising agency before his interest shifted to television. He began his second career in 1976 as a story editor on Baa Baa Black Sheep. Bellisario was promoted to producer on the sixth episode. His subsequent credits include Battlestar Galactica, Magnum, P.I., Quantum Leap, plus various other television and feature credits. JAG is produced by Belisarius Productions in association with Paramount Television.

Following are excerpts of a conversation between Bellisario and Michael Zakula, the Kodak manager for the television industry in the Hollywood region:

ZAKULA: What sparked the idea for JAG?

BELLISARIO: Who knows where ideas come from?  When I wrote “Fade In” on what was to become JAG, I wrote, as always, what I liked instead of trying to write what’s in fashion at the moment, believing that if I was happy with the show, so would a network and an audience.  The Navy was deploying females on carriers for the first time in combat roles, so I wrote a mystery about a female Naval aviator who was murdered at sea.  I learned that JAG (Judge Advocate General Corps) officers would investigate such a murder.   In researching how this worked, I learned that JAG officers are able to investigate, prosecute and defend.  Combining that franchise with the ability to use all of the big military toys, from ships to fighter aircraft, I thought made the basis of a terrific series, so what I started as a Naval aviation pilot became a JAG pilot.

ZAKULA: When you begin writing a script for a program like this, do you see the characters and settings in your mind as images or is it all words at that point?

BELLISARIO: It’s never words.  It’s always the characters speaking.  An interesting phenomenon is that writers never get on film what they see as they write, even if they are directing and producing the film.  Sometimes it ends up better, sometimes it isn’t as good.  Either way, it’s never exactly what you envisioned as you wrote.

ZAKULA: One of the things which really strikes me is that your films tend to be so visually oriented that the cinematographers who work on your shows keep winning Emmy awards and nominations, and they are also almost routinely recognized by the American Society of Cinematographers. Tom Del Ruth, who shot the pilot and the first eight episodes, earned that recognition from his peers, and so has Hugo Cortina, who came onto the show after Tom. It was the same with Quantum Leap and Magnum, P.I.

BELLISARIO: I look for talented cinematographers because I don’t want the bright sitcom look that I find in many TV dramas.  One of the first things I said to Hugo was that I wanted a rich feature film image.  This is very difficult to achieve on a TV production schedule, but Hugo said he could capture the look if I would allow him to take chances and light at very low levels.  I gave Hugo free rein and fortunately he was a cinematographer with consummate skills who could deliver.

ZAKULA: How do you communicate and tell Hugo what you expect?           

BELLISARIO: It’s fairly simple, we talk about a style that’s appropriate to the story.  After all these years, we have an established look that we vary only when the episode requires it.  For example, we recently filmed a Christmas episode that required the integration of footage from the Vietnam era and I suggested that we use the same film stock if it was still available or a similar one if not, and then left it to Hugo to work his magic.  In many ways this close collaboration is more important than collaborating with the various directors who film our episodes.  While the cinematographer can’t dictate to the director, he is there episode after episode and knows our filming style better than anyone.  For example, most first time directors with us are surprised when Hugo tells them it’s okay to let the side of a face go totally dark or play a scene in silhouette.

ZAKULA: Have you always felt that way, or is this something you learned?

BELLISARIO: I guess I’ve always felt that way.  I had a very definite cinemagraphic style in mind when I wrote Magnum P.I., which was the first show I created and executive produced.  I wanted Hawaii to look the way it did before World War II or at least the way I imagined it.  I had never been to Hawaii when I wrote the pilot, I did my research from a 1955 travel book.  I imagined the beaches as clean and pristine with palm trees, no condos and two-lane roads without power lines.  Boy was I surprised when I got to Oahu to shoot the pilot.  But I stuck with the look I had imagined.  In fact, in one of the early episodes, despite explaining this style to the director, he shot a scene on the beach with condos in the background.  I had the scene re-shot on a beach without condos to maintain the unique look I had visualized for the show.

ZAKULA: Can you give me an example of how you got that look?

BELLISARIO: Well, as I said, filming as much as possible at locations that could have been used in a 30’s or 40’s period film.  For example, when filming the pilot, we couldn’t find a location that fit my image of “Robin Masters’” estate, so we created one from a number of locations.  The gate was one place, the driveway somewhere else.  The guesthouse was unfortunately positioned where it would have been in the middle of what was to be the front of the estate.  For the next eight years that guesthouse was never filmed in the same frame with the main house.  It was photographically positioned through a portico that led to the rear of the mansion.  Through such highly restrictive filming, we also never showed the properties actually abutting “Robin Masters’” estate, and were able to create the illusion of an expansive ocean front property. Tourists visiting the location were stunned to discover that the fabulous “Robin Masters” estate was actually a small property sandwiched between a Lion’s Club and another house.

ZAKULA: It sounds like you might be a perfectionist.

BELLISARIO: I am and it drives some people crazy.  I know what I want whether it’s in the writing, the casting, the filming or the editing, which is why after five years I’m still involved in all these aspects of the show.

ZAKULA: They used to say television is a close-up medium and everything should be brightly lit. Do you think audiences are getting more sophisticated?

BELLISARIO: The world is more sophisticated about everything in life, including television.  Once on another show, a network executive said, “I know what’s wrong with this show.  You are using 10:00 p.m. lighting and it’s an 8:00 p.m. show.”  Trying not to laugh, I asked, ‘What is 10:00 p.m. lighting?’  He informed me that “10:00 p.m. lighting is dark and 8:00 p.m. lighting is bright.”  I ignored this observation for a while until he became really insistent.

ZAKULA: How did you handle that?

BELLISARIO: I told the lab to print our dailies four stops hot – just burn everything out.  The executive looked at the dailies and said, “That’s exactly what the audience wants...”  He was happy and unbeknownst to him, we finished the show with a properly color corrected print.  Since we never heard another word about it, he obviously never watched the show on air.

ZAKULA: The dialogue on JAG is so interesting. How do you find a balance between the images and getting the audience to listen to the words—especially on television where the audience is sitting in their living rooms with all kinds of distractions?

BELLISARIO: I never believed in the old formula that you tell an audience what’s going to happen, show it to them, and then tell them what they saw.  If the story is interesting enough, the audience won’t be reading a newspaper at the same time.  You better love telling stories if you are in this business, and if you love it, you ignore the silly rules like that old formula.

ZAKULA: Are you doing anything differently to account for the fact that JAG is being simulcast in high-definition format?

BELLISARIO: We’re required by CBS to finish our shows in the Hi-Def (16:9) format, and we certainly protect for that format as we film, however since the vast majority of the audience doesn’t own high-definition TVs, we compose primarily for the 4:3 format.  There’s a big difference in how you film for 16:9 or 4:3.  We protect for 16:9 but we stage for 4:3.

ZAKULA: Has that worked?

BELLISARIO: It has been pretty smooth.  We had one episode where in the 16:9 format an actor was standing in the edge of the frame waiting for his cue, but that’s the only flub we’ve had.  And we caught it in time to blow the frame up so he was off camera in 16:9.

ZAKULA: When wide-screen TV does become a factor, how will it affect your thinking about staging and composition and even telling stories?

BELLISARIO: As I said, all we’re doing today is trying to protect the 16:9 format.  When the balance shifts to Hi-Def screens, we will definitely stage differently.

ZAKULA: Do you get a lot of response from the audience?   

BELLISARIO: A sometimes-surprising amount.  We get an enormous amount of e-mail on JAG, and have a number of fans who have created their own websites.  Many of these fans are adamant about their likes and dislikes and how they see the characters developing.  Of course, you have to trust your own feelings and not react to their desires because there’s a danger of being swayed by a few avid e-mailers.  However it is fun to read them and mail can be extremely helpful; Quantum Leap was close to being cancelled its first year until a huge amount of fan mail poured in protesting the potential cancellation.

 ZAKULA: What was the secret of that show?

BELLISARIO: It was fun.  I wanted to do an anthology, which the networks generally don’t like, so I created Quantum Leap with the characters Sam and Al in every episode to provide consistency and characters an audience could get attached to.  This allowed me to tell a different story every week.

ZAKULA: How do you think television is going to change with digital distribution, and ultimately the Internet, making hundreds of channels accessible?

BELLISARIO: I have a satellite that brings in 900 channels.  This expanding electronic media gives writers and filmmakers an opportunity to create programming that was not possible on three or four networks.  All these channels fracture the audience, but that’s not bad since it provides an opportunity for more programming of diverse content.  I can however understand the networks’ problem of shrinking audience size.  In the beginning of my career, I worked on a show called Baa Baa Black Sheep.  It was a good show up against the top two rated shows on television that year, Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley.  We were cancelled with a 28 share.  Today, a 28 share would be a gigantic hit.

ZAKULA: What determines whether a program is produced in 16 or 35 millimeter format or perhaps video? Is it a purely financial decision or are there creative implications?

BELLISARIO: It is primarily financial.  However the JAG Christmas episode I spoke of earlier, which flashed back to Vietnam in 1969, incorporated our cast with a considerable amount of 16mm footage taken when Bob Hope was doing a Christmas show that year.  The majority of the episode was a flashback and Hugo shot it on the same 16mm stock so that it would be editorially seamless with the Bob Hope footage.  In the 100th episode of JAG, we had two scenes shot on video because it was appropriate in the telling of the story.  We’d probably film in Super 8 if it suited the story.

Editors note: Bellisario’s work recently earned him a nomination for the 1999 Caucus Honor Producer Award .